1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to providing imaging job control. In particular, the present invention relates to systems and methods for describing imaging tasks (e.g., print jobs, fax jobs, scan jobs and document management) across a distributed environment of imaging clients, servers and devices, wherein the tasks include complex imaging operations. The present invention further relates to interchanging imaging data and operations.
2. Background and Related Art
The control, distribution and interchange of a network print job include a system of communicating components that utilize a standardized communication and control system. An example of such a system is available in the Microsoft Windows® family of operating systems, which includes a print generation method for submitting documents/images as a print job, a print subsystem for controlling and despooling a print job to a printing device, a print job control language for controlling the rendering, paper processing and finishing on the printing device, and firmware in the printing device that works in conjunction with the print subsystem's despooling mechanism and print job control language to perform the print job.
Generally, the user initiates a print job through a document/image specific application and printer driver. The application/printer driver converts the document/image data into a printer ready format (e.g., PCL). The printer driver may also display a print menu from which the user may select one or more print options that control how the printer renders (e.g., resolution), assembles (e.g., duplex) and finishes (e.g., stapling) the print job. The selected print options are then converted into print job control commands (e.g., PJL). The printer driver then combines the print job control commands with the printer ready data into a print job and submits the print job to the print spooler. The print spooler despools the print job through the despooling print subsystem (e.g., print processor and port manager) to the targeted printer.
An alternative technique, which is referred to as “direct printing,” includes a document/image format (e.g., PDF, TIFF) that is supported by the printing device as printer ready data. In this technique, the user selects print options from a direct submit application. The selected print options are then converted into print job control commands. The direct submit application then combines the print job control commands with the printer ready data into a print job and submits the print job to the print spooler.
While this technique supports a method of programming the control of the printing task, it does not provide programming methods for more complex operations surrounding the print job, such as (i) building a composite print job; (ii) faxing one or more electronic copies of the print job; (iii) retrieving the document/images from an archive/retrieval document system; or (iv) specifying imaging operations to be performed on the print server.
In another technique, the print and fax imaging tasks are merged into the same print/fax subsystem, such as in Microsoft Windows® XP. This technique is similar to the print spooler technique described above, except that a fax driver is used in place of a printer driver. The fax driver converts the document/image into a fax ready data, generates fax control commands compatible with fax machine, combines the fax control commands and fax ready data into a fax job, and spools the fax job to the combined print/fax spooler. The print/fax spooler despools the fax job through the despooling print/fax subsystem to the targeted fax machine.
While this technique allows using the same imaging subsystems for both print and fax, it still suffers in that it cannot combine a print and fax job into a single composite job (i.e., print and fax jobs are separate), and includes other limitations mentioned above.
In another technique, a document management appliance combines document archive/retrieval with imaging device management. In this technique, multiple imaging clients (e.g., personal computers) and multi-functional peripheral devices can be connected to the management device. While this technique includes the advantages that imaging tasks are built from a common interface and that composite imaging jobs (e.g., print and scan) can be constructed, the technique suffers in that it requires the addition of a hardware device (i.e., appliance), restricts imaging jobs to document/images stored on the appliance, and restricts composite imaging jobs to only those supported by the particular manufacturer's imaging devices.
Thus, while imaging techniques currently exist, the imaging techniques include a variety of challenges. For example, available imaging technology currently includes imaging program languages that are specialized for specific imaging operations. Thus, a print job control language is typically used to describe the job control of a print job and can be interchanged between an imaging client and device. However, since the print job control language is only used to control print operations, complex jobs that include a composite of other imaging operations (e.g., a scan job, a fax job and an archive/retrieval job) cannot be described. Further, the initiation of distributed imaging operations and interchange is performed manually. Accordingly, it would be an improvement in the art to augment or even replace current techniques with other techniques.